5 Best Metal Detectors 2022

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

IMO, the first thing most people should consider when making any purchase is "what's my budget?"  It seems that gets lost here way too often.  Newbie:  "I want to get a detector under $500."  Answer:  "Minelab Equinox!"  So each category you mention should also have some kind of value/affordability ranking list added to the "if cost is no object..." list.

Are there a bunch of these "top 5" lists for detectors running around on the internet?  I'm vaguely aware of Amazon's, but pretty sure those are based upon their sales volumes -- another worthless list, IMO -- popularity among people who don't know much about the endeavor.

I assume Cipher was mostly looking to have fun.  I'll retreat to other topics so I don't play too much of the party pooper role.

I sold a lot of detectors over a lot of years, and I can confirm budget is the primary decider. Many people on this website think nothing of spending over $1000 on a metal detector. That’s totally laughable to the average consumer.  My shop trended higher end, and even then I’d say $700-$800 was the sweet spot. For the overall market, it’s under $400. Machines like the Garrett Ace and Minelab Vanquish rule the roost for many people. The Vanquish in particular has amazing bang for the buck, as does Simplex.

[mh9162013]

2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

IMO, the first thing most people should consider when making any purchase is "what's my budget?" 

If we're talking about a metal detecting rookie, I think that should be consideration 1a, with "what do you want to do with your detector?" being consideration 1b. 

So many newcomers truly don't know what they don't know. And for some of them, their budget is an artificially placed financial limit. So if someone comes in saying "I have $500, what should I buy?" I think at least half the time, they could go to $550 or $600, but for the right reason.

For example, if I wanted a new car and my budget was $25,000, but someone told me that for $30,000 I could get a car that ran on tap water and got 100 miles to the gallon, I'd find a way to scrounge up another $5,000.

This is an exaggeration, but I've seen prospective be willing to increase their budget to that of an Apex, Simplex, Vanquish 440/540 or Equinox because they realize what a step up it is to get SMF, waterproofing, wireless capability or other features.

[sodbuster]

Just as an example of how unreliable an internet search can be....

this was up at the top of the "best" search 

[mh9162013]

2 minutes ago, sodbuster said:

Just as an example of how unreliable an internet search can be....

this was up at the top of the "best" search 

It's called search engine optimization, not search engine honesty.

[phrunt]

I agree about the budget detectors but they should be a different category or ideally a different top 5 list for each category or an entirely different way of presenting the lists.  If a budget detector really makes it into a genuine top 5 list category that's awesome for that detector.   Where it can get complicated is different soil types too.  I hear people say they get good ID's with their Simplex although I don't know what they're comparing the ID's to which forms their opinion, good compared to what?, I'm in the most mild soils possible and I don't, my Garrett Ace detectors give far more accurate ID's than the Simplex.  My Ace detectors are far deeper on coins than the Simplex, it's ID's are bouncing around often into the iron range when the Ace still find it as a good target.  Someone in different soils may find the opposite where the Simplex is better for them than the Ace 300 for depth/ID.  That's where it gets complicated especially with entry level units though as I'd say for coins in my soil the Ace is better than the Simplex and I would find more coins with it, especially deep silvers, yet without having ground balance on the Ace it's going to be worse for someone else in worse soil.  Plenty of entry level units don't have manual ground balance but even though the Simplex has it, it doesn't make it better for me but might for someone else.

My opinion is top lists don't really work, Steve's guide to nugget detectors works, it runs through all the mainstream models and talks about their pros and cons and then a personal pick of the best one for his needs.  I like that method.  It leaves the decision up to the person reading it and gives them plenty of information to get started on their research on models to help narrow it down.  If someone makes a wrong decision it's more their fault than the lists, but they'd be not too far off wrong anyway as the list is pretty detailed.

That's where a lot of the confusion comes from with these top lists, detectors like the Simplex and other entry level machines are common on the top 5 or 10 list of detectors on the market. That's what I'm seeing now with existing top lists.  The Ace series are often on the lists too and the Simplex and Ace series are often near the top of even at the top.

Detectors are too often misrepresented on these lists and innocent people use these lists to make buying decisions often being mislead.  Some entry level detectors put people off the hobby, they're so difficult to get decent Target information out of they're unappealing to use.  You want a beginner to like the hobby? Make a detector that's easy to cherry pick good targets like coins, people get hooked easily when they can do that.

Whenever someone asks me what gold detector to buy I point them to Steve's guide to Nugget Detectors, I wish such a list existed for coin and jewellery detectors.  Far too often the detector people recommend when someone asks them which detector is best is the one they own, if it's the best or not as it's what they know.  The other day a girl was asking which detector is the best for gold nuggets, coins and jewellery finding on beaches and Parks in NZ, an all purpose unit really.  Some guy was telling her the GM1000 was perfect for that (its the only detector he owns), I had to step in and correct him and it got quite heated on his behalf, a GM for detecting coins and jewellery in parks? Detecting beaches and shallow water hunting at the beach for coins and jewellery with a little 10x5" coil?  Is she going to dig 1000 holes to find some coins in parks? A dig it all detector with small coils in parks looking for deep silvers in NZ? Come on!  Fortunately she listened to me instead and now owns an Equinox 800 and is super happy and finding stuff already with the Target ID list I gave her for our common coin finds, now she realises why it's good to have Target ID's on a detector, he told it it makes no difference as his GM tells him good or bad target.    If there was a decent list like Steve's nugget detector guide I could have pointed her to that to do some research of her own.  I recommended the Vanquish if shes on a budget the Nox 600 or 800 if she has more to spend and explained the differences, she wisely selected the 800.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but this stuff bugs me as it's people spending their money on something and they can be easily mislead by these "top lists" and the lists exist to give new comers information, anyone involved in the hobby knows enough not to need the lists so much.

I know google gives different search results for different people/counties but here if I google "best gold detector 2022) then this list comes up on the top of the search results.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rf-buying-guides/best-gold-metal-detectors-reviews

9 Best Gold Metal Detectors March 2022

Results are Based on

6,953 Reviews Scanned

 

and the Winner is

 

1

Bounty Hunter Gold Digger Metal Detector NEW!

9.7

 

 

See why I think the lists are rubbish?

[mh9162013]

27 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Some guy was telling her the GM1000 was perfect for that (its the only detector he owns)

As they say, a little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing...

[longbow62]

I've always been a top of the line buyer for my hobbies even as a newbie. The first detector I bought was a Whites XLT in 1998. A very expensive machine back in the day. I did not stick with detecting at the time, but kept it and when I did start back almost 5 years ago I actually found some nice coins and relics before I upgraded to a Nokta Impact(sold now) as the second machine I bought. Then the Equinox 800 I have 2. One bought new the other I traded an Etrac for. Heck I even have a brand new Deus I bought last summer. I plan on pairing down soon before the next Minelab release. I don't care if it's over $2000 I'm getting it as soon as it's available for pre-order. 

I think people who are super serious about the hobby might flinch at $1600-$2500 for a relic/coin detector, but end up making the outlay if the tech and features are there.

As a example look at hunting compound bows or crossbows which is my other hobby. You can easily reach the same price range as high end detectors. Some compound shooters upgrade every couple of years. Many every year. The same can be said of hunting and targets rifles. In the target rifle game you better be prepared to pay to play.

 

[GB_Amateur]

5 hours ago, phrunt said:

Steve's guide to nugget detectors works, it runs through all the mainstream models and talks about their pros and cons and then a personal pick of the best one for his needs.  I like that method.  It leaves the decision up to the person reading it and gives them plenty of information to get started on their research on models to help narrow it down.

I'm 100% in agreement.   When I came back to detecting I first joined GPAA, then bought a book or two on gold nugget detecting, and finally found this site and Steve's reviews.  The best advice (maybe the only good advice) on detectors came from here.  I've told this before but maybe others' memory is as bad as mine so I'll repeat.  At that time, Steve had three detectors pretty much a tie concering best value in an IB/VLF -- Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Minelab X-Terra 705, and Garrett AT/Gold.  Many reviewers would have caved to naming a best at the expense of the others, but Steve said something like (paraphrased) "if you force me to name one of these three then it's XYZ, but that's at best splitting hairs."  I'd had a Garrett detector before (a good one) and Minelab was new enough ('new' for me since I had been out of detecting for 30 years) that I chose Fisher -- a company I remembered as having a good reputation from back in the 70's and I wanted to give them a try.  I wasn't disappointed.  Less than a year later the local newspaper classifieds had a next-to-new 705 for a very good price so I grabbed that.  (Never got the AT/Gold, though.)

Creating such a guide is a lot of work, and only a few are knowedgeable enough to be able to do it justice.  Steve's been more than generous over the years sharing his knowledge so if such a project is to happen, others equally as experienced needs to step up for other categories (dry land parks/school coin hunting, beach/shore/water jewelry detecting, relic detecting, etc.)

I always get a chuckle when someone suggests to Steve that he should write a book.  Have you not looked around this site??  There's more than a couple books worth of information that he's already written and made available here, for free!

[phrunt]

Yep, you're right.  The problem with most of these top lists if they have affiliate links to sites like Amazon where it seems they get some kickback for the sales of the detectors from their direct links.  The detector that they can get some coin for promoting is the one they'll try and sell.  The same can often be said for reviews.  It's hard to get non-biased information like the guide to nugget detectors.

This is my search results if I search Google for "best metal detectors 2022"

I go into that first link to see the list, and low and behold

They admit they get paid for people following their links to the best metal detectors, at least they're semi honest I guess, but the best metal detector for 2022 is the Sunpow Professional.  An Awesome machine, kinda looks like Kermit the Frog.

The second top result is metalmetectors.com, been in business since 1983, must be a good company.

Their top gold detector for 2022 is the Garrett ATX

 

It's well worth having a little peep at their best metal detectors of 2022, https://www.metaldetector.com/learn/buying-guide-articles/getting-started/which-metal-detector-is-best-for-you

It's a real disappointment seeing so many people mislead.

 

[GB_Amateur]

35 minutes ago, phrunt said:

t's well worth having a little peep at their best metal detectors of 2022, https://www.metaldetector.com/learn/buying-guide-articles/getting-started/which-metal-detector-is-best-for-you

It's a real disappointment seeing so many people mislead.

I could be wrong but I think that's a site that tries to push the detectors they have a bloated inventory on.  Bounty Hunter Platinum the best coin detector?  Even if you said "best coin detector under $400" I don't think that would be many peoples' first choice.  Heck, it probably isn't First Texas's best coin detector under $400.  But I bet they have a stack of them in the back room.  Either that or they can get them really cheap.  First Texas may be wanting to unload their inventory, too, so they can discontinue this model.

Caveat emptor has never been more true than in the social media internet age.